Anatomy of a Woglist
This section breaks down a typical woglist, a Single Artist list by the new wave group The Cars. This woglist can be found in the Archives. Pace categories are explained, as well as pace consistency.
Breaking It Down
Just as songs have different lengths and pace, so do woglists. Despite this variety, most lists follow a certain pattern—they aren’t just randomly slapped together. I usually have to test a list out several times to make sure that I have the right songs and that they’re in the right order.
Let’s take a look at a typical list, Jogging in Stereo (Single Artist, the Cars). This wog’s overall rating is Vigorous, which is faster than Brisk but not as fast as Very Vigorous. A woglist’s rating is based on its Average BPM, with a little extra weight given to jogging songs (at 130 BPM and over). Within these categories, of course, woglists vary quite a bit.
The rating categories, from fastest to slowest, are as follows:
- Pulse-Pounder: A lot of jogging, maybe even running. But even Pulse-Pounders start and finish with walks, and have at least one slower number in the middle.
- Very Vigorous: Not quite as demanding as a Pulse-Pounder, but still an uptempo workout.
- Vigorous: Should have at least three solid jogging opportunities. Jogging in Stereo has four jogs, but three of them are slow jogs.
- Brisk: Usually two or three jogging songs, and walking numbers tend to be zippy.
- Moderate: Mostly walks, but often with one or two less demanding jogs.
- Light: Rarely have jogs, and if they do they’re easy ones.
- Very Light: Walking only, often slow-going.
Now let’s look at the rest of what’s listed for this woglist.
On the left side under Pace Breakdown, you’ll see the list broken down by pace (see Pace for Songs). Thus Jogging in Stereo has 16 minutes of brisk walking, over 10 minutes of slow jogging, etc. On the right side is a list of other information about this wog. Notice that Distance and Speed have a range of values: the lower value is based on a stride length of two feet, the higher on a stride length of three feet. Ave BPM is based on the total number of beats in the wog divided by the total time. Jog Beats is what percent of the total beats in the wog are in jogs at 130 BPM or higher.
Variability is how the list varies in pace from song to song. Lists with Very Low variability have songs within a narrow range of paces; Flatliners are an extreme example of this. Others may have very slow songs as well as very fast songs, making for High or Very High variability.
After the Pace Breakdown section, and a short description of the list, we come to the list itself. Most of this should be self-explanatory, except for the following:
PC: Songs vary in what I call pace consistency. Some numbers—especially that those use drum machines—are very consistent from start to finish. Some songs change rhythm so often that they’re useless for wogging. Most songs fall somewhere in between. While a little rhythmic variety might liven up a song, for the most part it’s good to be consistent. Songs that are very consistent have a pace consistency (PC) rating of 5; a 4 indicates only a little inconsistency; 3 is moderately consistent; 2 has major changes, but is consistent within those changes to still be wogging material; 1 is too inconsistent for wogging. No song on any of my lists rates a 1, and most are either 4 or 5.
Comment: In addition to my pithy remarks, here’s where you’ll find info on a song’s intro and outro, if any, plus whether it’s a Two-Timer (can be run at high speed or walked at low speed) or makes a good song for skipping along to (indicated by SKBL). For more, see Terminology.
Source/Album: Many songs are available on more than one CD; I’ve listed only one here. Most can also be purchased and downloaded from online sources. If the song is not available on either iTunes or Amazon, I’ve denoted it here with the symbol NADL. This doesn’t mean that the song can’t be downloaded from a source other than iTunes or Amazon.